OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
RGBlimp: Robotic Gliding Blimp -- Design, Modeling, Development, and Aerodynamics Analysis
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2023
Year: 2023

A miniature robotic blimp, as one type of lighter-than-air aerial vehicle, has attracted increasing attention in the science and engineering field for its long flight duration and safe aerial locomotion. While a variety of miniature robotic blimps have been developed over the past decade, most of them utilize the buoyant lift and neglect the aerodynamic lift in their design, thus leading to a mediocre aerodynamic performance. This letter proposes a new design of miniature robotic blimp that combines desirable features of both a robotic blimp and a fixed-wing glider, named the Robotic Gliding Blimp, or RGBlimp. This robot, equipped with an envelope filled with helium and a pair of wings, uses an internal moving mass and a pair of propellers for its locomotion control. This letter presents the design, dynamic modeling, prototyping, and system identification of the RGBlimp. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first effort to systematically design and develop such a miniature robotic blimp with hybrid lifts and moving mass control. Experimental results are presented to validate the design and the dynamic model of the RGBlimp. Analysis of the RGBlimp aerodynamics is conducted which confirms the performance improvement of the proposed RGBlimp in aerodynamic efficiency and flight stability.
Membership inference attack with relative decision boundary distance
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

Membership inference attack is one of the most popular privacy attacks in machine learning, which aims to predict whether a given sample was contained in the target model's training set. Label-only membership inference attack is a variant that exploits sample robustness and attracts more attention since it assumes a practical scenario in which the adversary only has access to the predicted labels of the input samples. However, since the decision boundary distance, which measures robustness, is strongly affected by the random initial image, the adversary may get opposite results even for the same input samples. In this paper, we propose a new attack method, called muti-class adaptive membership inference attack in the label-only setting. All decision boundary distances for all target classes have been traversed in the early attack iterations, and the subsequent attack iterations continue with the shortest decision boundary distance to obtain a stable and optimal decision boundary distance. Instead of using a single boundary distance, the relative boundary distance between samples and neighboring points has also been employed as a new membership score to distinguish between member samples inside the training set and nonmember samples outside the training set. Experiments show that previous label-only membership inference attacks using the untargeted HopSkipJump algorithm fail to achieve optimal decision bounds in more than half of the samples, whereas our multi-targeted HopSkipJump algorithm succeeds in almost all samples. In addition, extensive experiments show that our multi-class adaptive MIA outperforms current label-only membership inference attacks in the CIFAR10, and CIFAR100 datasets, especially for the true positive rate at low false positive rates metric.
Knowledge-Augmented Language Model Prompting for Zero-Shot Knowledge Graph Question Answering
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2023
Year: 2023

Large Language Models (LLMs) are capable of performing zero-shot closed-book question answering tasks, based on their internal knowledge stored in parameters during pre-training. However, such internalized knowledge might be insufficient and incorrect, which could lead LLMs to generate factually wrong answers. Furthermore, fine-tuning LLMs to update their knowledge is expensive. To this end, we propose to augment the knowledge directly in the input of LLMs. Specifically, we first retrieve the relevant facts to the input question from the knowledge graph based on semantic similarities between the question and its associated facts. After that, we prepend the retrieved facts to the input question in the form of the prompt, which is then forwarded to LLMs to generate the answer. Our framework, Knowledge-Augmented language model PromptING (KAPING), requires no model training, thus completely zero-shot. We validate the performance of our KAPING framework on the knowledge graph question answering task, that aims to answer the user's question based on facts over a knowledge graph, on which ours outperforms relevant zero-shot baselines by up to 48% in average, across multiple LLMs of various sizes.
Enhancing Virtual Assistant Intelligence: Precise Area Targeting for Instance-level User Intents beyond Metadata
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2023
Year: 2023

Virtual assistants have been widely used by mobile phone users in recent years. Although their capabilities of processing user intents have been developed rapidly, virtual assistants in most platforms are only capable of handling pre-defined high-level tasks supported by extra manual efforts of developers. However, instance-level user intents containing more detailed objectives with complex practical situations, are yet rarely studied so far. In this paper, we explore virtual assistants capable of processing instance-level user intents based on pixels of application screens, without the requirements of extra extensions on the application side. We propose a novel cross-modal deep learning pipeline, which understands the input vocal or textual instance-level user intents, predicts the targeting operational area, and detects the absolute button area on screens without any metadata of applications. We conducted a user study with 10 participants to collect a testing dataset with instance-level user intents. The testing dataset is then utilized to evaluate the performance of our model, which demonstrates that our model is promising with the achievement of 64.43% accuracy on our testing dataset.
FusedRF: Fusing Multiple Radiance Fields
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

Radiance Fields (RFs) have shown great potential to represent scenes from casually captured discrete views. Compositing parts or whole of multiple captured scenes could greatly interest several XR applications. Prior works can generate new views of such scenes by tracing each scene in parallel. This increases the render times and memory requirements with the number of components. In this work, we provide a method to create a single, compact, fused RF representation for a scene composited using multiple RFs. The fused RF has the same render times and memory utilizations as a single RF. Our method distills information from multiple teacher RFs into a single student RF while also facilitating further manipulations like addition and deletion into the fused representation.
A Threat Model for Soft Privacy on Smart Cars
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2023
Year: 2023

Modern cars are getting so computerised that ENISA's phrase "smart cars" is a perfect fit. The amount of personal data that they process is very large and, yet, increasing. Hence, the need to address citizens' privacy while they drive and, correspondingly, the importance of privacy threat modelling (in support of a respective risk assessment, such as through a Data Protection Impact Assessment). This paper addresses privacy threats by advancing a general modelling methodology and by demonstrating it specifically on soft privacy, which ensures citizens' full control on their personal data. By considering all relevant threat agents, the paper applies the methodology to the specific automotive domain while keeping threats at the same level of detail as ENISA's. The main result beside the modelling methodology consists of both domain-independent and automotive domain-dependent soft privacy threats. While cybersecurity has been vastly threat-modelled so far, this paper extends the literature with a threat model for soft privacy on smart cars, producing 17 domain-independent threats that, associated with 41 domain-specific assets, shape a novel set of domain-dependent threats in automotive.
Efficient Vision Transformer for Human Pose Estimation via Patch Selection
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

While Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have been widely successful in 2D human pose estimation, Vision Transformers (ViTs) have emerged as a promising alternative to CNNs, boosting state-of-the-art performance. However, the quadratic computational complexity of ViTs has limited their applicability for processing high-resolution images. In this paper, we propose three methods for reducing ViT's computational complexity, which are based on selecting and processing a small number of most informative patches while disregarding others. The first two methods leverage a lightweight pose estimation network to guide the patch selection process, while the third method utilizes a set of learnable joint tokens to ensure that the selected patches contain the most important information about body joints. Experiments across six benchmarks show that our proposed methods achieve a significant reduction in computational complexity, ranging from 30% to 44%, with only a minimal drop in accuracy between 0% and 3.5%.
Coarse Is Better? A New Pipeline Towards Self-Supervised Learning with Uncurated Images
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

Most self-supervised learning (SSL) methods often work on curated datasets where the object-centric assumption holds. This assumption breaks down in uncurated images. Existing scene image SSL methods try to find the two views from original scene images that are well matched or dense, which is both complex and computationally heavy. This paper proposes a conceptually different pipeline: first find regions that are coarse objects (with adequate objectness), crop them out as pseudo object-centric images, then any SSL method can be directly applied as in a real object-centric dataset. That is, coarse crops benefits scene images SSL. A novel cropping strategy that produces coarse object box is proposed. The new pipeline and cropping strategy successfully learn quality features from uncurated datasets without ImageNet. Experiments show that our pipeline outperforms existing SSL methods (MoCo-v2, DenseCL and MAE) on classification, detection and segmentation tasks. We further conduct extensively ablations to verify that: 1) the pipeline do not rely on pretrained models; 2) the cropping strategy is better than existing object discovery methods; 3) our method is not sensitive to hyperparameters and data augmentations.
Achievable Rate Analysis in Molecular Channels with Reset-Counting Fully Absorbing Receivers
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2023
Year: 2023

In this paper, we investigate the achievable rate of a diffusive Molecular Communication (MC) channel with fully absorbing receiver, which counts particles absorbed along each symbol interval and resets the counter at every interval (reset-counting). The MC channel is affected by a memory effect and thus inter-symbol interference (ISI), due to the delayed arrival of molecules. To reduce complexity, our analysis is based on measuring the channel memory as an integer number of symbol intervals and on a single-sample memoryless detector. Thus, in our model the effect of released particles remains effective for a limited number of symbol intervals. We optimize the detector threshold for maximizing capacity, approximate as Gaussian the received signal distribution, and calculate the channel mutual information affected by ISI, in the case of binary concentration shift keying modulation. To the best of our knowledge, in literature there are no previous investigations on the achievable rate in this type of system. Our results demonstrate that, in general, the optimal input probability distribution achieving the maximum achievable rate may be not uniform. In particular, when the symbol interval is small (strong ISI), the maximum achievable rate does not occur with equiprobable transmission of bits.
Decentralized Technologies for AI Hubs
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2023
Year: 2023

AI requires heavy amounts of storage and compute with assets that are commonly stored in AI Hubs. AI Hubs have contributed significantly to the democratization of AI. However, existing implementations are associated with certain benefits and limitations that stem from the underlying infrastructure and governance systems with which they are built. These limitations include high costs, lack of monetization and reward, lack of control and difficulty of reproducibility. In the current work, we explore the potential of decentralized technologies - such as Web3 wallets, peer-to-peer marketplaces, storage and compute, and DAOs - to address some of these issues. We suggest that these infrastructural components can be used in combination in the design and construction of decentralized AI Hubs.
Introduction and Assessment of the Addition of Links and Containers to the Blackboard Architecture
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2023
Year: 2023

The Blackboard Architecture provides a mechanism for storing data and logic and using it to make decisions that impact the application environment that the Blackboard Architecture network models. While rule-fact-action networks can represent numerous types of data, the relationships that can be easily modeled are limited by the propositional logic nature of the rule-fact network structure. This paper proposes and evaluates the inclusion of containers and links in the Blackboard Architecture. These objects are designed to allow them to model organizational, physical, spatial and other relationships that cannot be readily or efficiently implemented as Boolean logic rules. Containers group related facts together and can be nested to implement complex relationships. Links interconnect containers that have a relationship that is relevant to their organizational purpose. Both objects, together, facilitate new ways of using the Blackboard Architecture and enable or simply its use for complex tasks that have multiple types of relationships that need to be considered during operations.
Dear XAI Community, We Need to Talk! Fundamental Misconceptions in Current XAI Research
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2023
Year: 2023

Despite progress in the field, significant parts of current XAI research are still not on solid conceptual, ethical, or methodological grounds. Unfortunately, these unfounded parts are not on the decline but continue to grow. Many explanation techniques are still proposed without clarifying their purpose. Instead, they are advertised with ever more fancy-looking heatmaps or only seemingly relevant benchmarks. Moreover, explanation techniques are motivated with questionable goals, such as building trust, or rely on strong assumptions about the 'concepts' that deep learning algorithms learn. In this paper, we highlight and discuss these and other misconceptions in current XAI research. We also suggest steps to make XAI a more substantive area of research.
Matroid-Constrained Vertex Cover
Venue: arXiv cs.DS 2023
Year: 2023

In this paper, we introduce the problem of Matroid-Constrained Vertex Cover: given a graph with weights on the edges and a matroid imposed on the vertices, our problem is to choose a subset of vertices that is independent in the matroid, with the objective of maximizing the total weight of covered edges. This problem is a generalization of the much studied max $k$-vertex cover problem, in which the matroid is the simple uniform matroid, and it is also a special case of the problem of maximizing a monotone submodular function under a matroid constraint. First, we give a Fixed-Parameter Tractable Approximation Scheme (FPT-AS) when the given matroid is a partition matroid, a laminar matroid, or a transversal matroid. Precisely, if $k$ is the rank of the matroid, we obtain $(1 - \varepsilon)$ approximation using $(1/\varepsilon)^{O(k)}n^{O(1)}$ time for partition and laminar matroids and using $(1/\varepsilon+k)^{O(k)}n^{O(1)}$ time for transversal matroids. This extends a result of Manurangsi for uniform matroids [Manurangsi, 2018]. We also show that these ideas can be applied in the context of (single-pass) streaming algorithms. Besides, our FPT-AS introduces a new technique based on matroid union, which may be of independent interest in extremal combinatorics. In the second part, we consider general matroids. We propose a simple local search algorithm that guarantees $2/3 \approx 0.66$ approximation. For the more general problem where two matroids are imposed on the vertices and a feasible solution must be a common independent set, we show that a local search algorithm gives a $2/3 \cdot (1 - 1/(p+1))$ approximation in $n^{O(p)}$ time, for any integer $p$. We also provide some evidence to show that with the constraint of one or two matroids, the approximation ratio of $2/3$ is likely the best possible, using the currently known techniques of local search.
An Overview of Challenges in Egocentric Text-Video Retrieval
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

Text-video retrieval contains various challenges, including biases coming from diverse sources. We highlight some of them supported by illustrations to open a discussion. Besides, we address one of the biases, frame length bias, with a simple method which brings a very incremental but promising increase. We conclude with future directions.
Quasi-Newton FDE in One-Bit Pseudo-Randomly Quantized Massive MIMO-OFDM Systems
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2023
Year: 2023

This letter offers a new frequency domain equalization (FDE) scheme that can work with a pseudo-random quantization (PRQ) scheme utilizing non-zero threshold quantization in one-bit uplink multi-user massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems to mitigate quantization distortion and support high-order modulation schemes. The equalizer is based on Newton's method (NM) and applicable for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission under frequency-selective fading by exploiting the properties of massive MIMO. We develop a low-complexity FDE scheme to obtain a quasi-Newton method. The proposed detector outperforms the benchmark detector with comparable complexity.
Transfer Learning of Transformer-based Speech Recognition Models from Czech to Slovak
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2023
Year: 2023

In this paper, we are comparing several methods of training the Slovak speech recognition models based on the Transformers architecture. Specifically, we are exploring the approach of transfer learning from the existing Czech pre-trained Wav2Vec 2.0 model into Slovak. We are demonstrating the benefits of the proposed approach on three Slovak datasets. Our Slovak models scored the best results when initializing the weights from the Czech model at the beginning of the pre-training phase. Our results show that the knowledge stored in the Cezch pre-trained model can be successfully reused to solve tasks in Slovak while outperforming even much larger public multilingual models.
Neural Networks from Biological to Artificial and Vice Versa
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2023
Year: 2023

In this paper, we examine how deep learning can be utilized to investigate neural health and the difficulties in interpreting neurological analyses within algorithmic models. The key contribution of this paper is the investigation of the impact of a dead neuron on the performance of artificial neural networks (ANNs). Therefore, we conduct several tests using different training algorithms and activation functions to identify the precise influence of the training process on neighboring neurons and the overall performance of the ANN in such cases. The aim is to assess the potential application of the findings in the biological domain, the expected results may have significant implications for the development of effective treatment strategies for neurological disorders. Successive training phases that incorporate visual and acoustic data derived from past social and familial experiences could be suggested to achieve this goal. Finally, we explore the conceptual analogy between the Adam optimizer and the learning process of the brain by delving into the specifics of both systems while acknowledging their fundamental differences.
ICON$^2$: Reliably Benchmarking Predictive Inequity in Object Detection
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2023
Year: 2023

As computer vision systems are being increasingly deployed at scale in high-stakes applications like autonomous driving, concerns about social bias in these systems are rising. Analysis of fairness in real-world vision systems, such as object detection in driving scenes, has been limited to observing predictive inequity across attributes such as pedestrian skin tone, and lacks a consistent methodology to disentangle the role of confounding variables e.g. does my model perform worse for a certain skin tone, or are such scenes in my dataset more challenging due to occlusion and crowds? In this work, we introduce ICON$^2$, a framework for robustly answering this question. ICON$^2$ leverages prior knowledge on the deficiencies of object detection systems to identify performance discrepancies across sub-populations, compute correlations between these potential confounders and a given sensitive attribute, and control for the most likely confounders to obtain a more reliable estimate of model bias. Using our approach, we conduct an in-depth study on the performance of object detection with respect to income from the BDD100K driving dataset, revealing useful insights.
Anticipating Accidents through Reasoned Simulation
Venue: arXiv cs.LO 2023
Year: 2023

A key goal of the System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) hazard analysis technique is the identification of loss scenarios - causal factors that could potentially lead to an accident. We propose an approach that aims to assist engineers in identifying potential loss scenarios that are associated with flawed assumptions about a system's intended operational environment. Our approach combines aspects of STPA with formal modelling and simulation. Currently, we are at a proof-of-concept stage and illustrate the approach using a case study based upon a simple car door locking system. In terms of the formal modelling, we use Extended Logic Programming (ELP) and on the simulation side, we use the CARLA simulator for autonomous driving. We make use of the problem frames approach to requirements engineering to bridge between the informal aspects of STPA and our formal modelling.
Hardness of Deceptive Certificate Selection
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2023
Year: 2023

Recent progress towards theoretical interpretability guarantees for AI has been made with classifiers that are based on interactive proof systems. A prover selects a certificate from the datapoint and sends it to a verifier who decides the class. In the context of machine learning, such a certificate can be a feature that is informative of the class. For a setup with high soundness and completeness, the exchanged certificates must have a high mutual information with the true class of the datapoint. However, this guarantee relies on a bound on the Asymmetric Feature Correlation of the dataset, a property that so far is difficult to estimate for high-dimensional data. It was conjectured in Wäldchen et al. that it is computationally hard to exploit the AFC, which is what we prove here. We consider a malicious prover-verifier duo that aims to exploit the AFC to achieve high completeness and soundness while using uninformative certificates. We show that this task is $\mathsf{NP}$-hard and cannot be approximated better than $\mathcal{O}(m^{1/8 - ε})$, where $m$ is the number of possible certificates, for $ε>0$ under the Dense-vs-Random conjecture. This is some evidence that AFC should not prevent the use of interactive classification for real-world tasks, as it is computationally hard to be exploited.